Chapter 130: one dance, four princes

Chapter 130 — One Dance, Four Princes

The hall breathed. That was the first thing Roxanne thought as she stepped through the doors with Isla on one side and Tessa on the other. Lanterns glowed at their staggered heights beneath the red and gold swags, string lights threaded through the fabric like captured stars, and the music rolled across the floor in a warm, lively wave. Students drifted between the food stalls, the games corner, and the dance floor, exactly as she had drawn it on the back of an old notice in a cold storage room.

She spotted Cordelia adjusting a lantern with a satisfied little nod. Wren stood near the switchboard, glowing nearly as brightly as the lights. A group of first-years were crowded around the games corner, shrieking over something. It was working. All of it was working.

Her hand went automatically to the folded checklist in her pocket.

"Absolutely not," said Tessa, catching her wrist and steering her toward the refreshments. "Pastries first. Worry later."

"I only want to check that the canopy lights are on."

"You promised to attend as a student," Isla said, falling into step on her other side. "Not as the night manager."

Roxanne looked at the room again, at the people laughing under the lanterns she had hung. Pride rose in her chest, quiet and steady. She could feel it without carrying it, she realised. She took the checklist out of her pocket, folded it once more, and handed it to Isla.

"Keep this somewhere I can’t find it."

"With pleasure."

She had barely reached the pastry table when a voice rang out across the hall.

"Make way. Make way for greatness."

Liam strode through the doors with Jace at his shoulder, dressed as though a royal gala had been misdirected to a school hall. His jacket was embroidered, his collar was stiff, and he had clearly spent a long time on his hair. He stopped before Roxanne and bowed so low that Jace had to step aside.

"Roxanne. Are you prepared for the most entertaining evening of your life?"

"I have already seen you trip over a chair," Roxanne said. "My expectations are modest."

"That chair was placed there by enemies."

"He nearly missed the beginning," Jace said cheerfully. "He couldn’t decide which jacket looked more impressive. There were four. He made me vote."

"The decision was important to the morale of the academy," said Liam with great dignity.

"Which one did I vote for?"

"The wrong one. I wore the other." Liam turned back to Roxanne and held out his hand with a flourish. "Dance with me."

She lifted her plate. "I’m currently enjoying my food."

"You are choosing a pastry over a prince."

"It’s a very good pastry."

Liam pressed a hand to his heart and staggered back. "Rejected. Destroyed. I shall be available when you make a wiser decision." He bowed again and swept off toward the dance floor, where he immediately began teaching a group of second-years a step he was clearly inventing as he went.

Roxanne ate every crumb of her pastry. By the time she had finished, the hall had filled and the music had shifted to something slower, and she found herself near the edge of the dance floor, watching the couples turn.

"Roxanne."

Lucien stood a few paces away. He wore dark blue, cut simply, with no medals or council badge, and his hands were clasped loosely in front of him instead of behind his back. He looked, she realised, like someone who had made an effort not to look like a chairman, and had mostly succeeded.

"Will you dance with me?" he asked. It was clear and direct, and perfectly unhurried.

"You asked properly."

"I was told to."

"You’ve fulfilled the requirement." She set down her glass.

He offered his hand, palm up, and she took it.

They began with something simple, a slow, easy pattern that left room to talk. His hand rested at her waist, light and respectful, and she was surprised by how little thinking it took. He led without pushing, and she followed without trying. Somewhere in the second turn she noticed that she had stopped guarding her words.

"I nearly declined to attend," Lucien said. "There was a matter with the east wing roster. A dozen small things."

"What changed your mind?"

"I decided I could spare one evening."

"You seem to be surviving being an ordinary student."

"I have not yet decided whether I like it."

"You’re dancing."

"That part has gone well."

She laughed, and he almost did, and they turned past the lanterns in the warm gold light.

As the music slowed further, his voice dropped. "May I ask whether you are comfortable with me?"

She considered it honestly, as she always did when he asked a direct question. "I am. But I’m still learning to trust my own feelings. I don’t always know what they mean."

He did not ask her to explain. He did not ask for reassurance. "You do not have to decide what a moment means while you are still in it," he said.

The relief of it surprised her. She felt something in her shoulders unlock. "Thank you for not making it complicated."

"I cannot promise never to complicate things. But I can promise not to decide anything for you."

She looked up at him, and he looked back, steady and calm, and neither of them said anything more. The song ended on a long, soft note. Lucien stepped back at once, released her hand with a small bow, and did not try to stretch the moment into another.

Isla and Tessa pounced the instant she returned.

"Well?" said Tessa.

"Well what?"

"You looked relaxed. You never look relaxed when you dance."

"I’m not giving a report."

"She is giving a report," Isla said, delighted.

"I am absolutely not."

They let her off, grudgingly, when she handed them each a second pastry. Later, she drifted toward the edge of the room to watch the floor, and found Kai standing near a pillar with his arms folded, looking as though he had been placed there by a sculptor.

"You are avoiding the dance floor now that your promised dance is done," he said.

"I’m taking a break."

"Of course."

He held out his hand. There was no flourish and no bow. He simply held it there, as though it were a perfectly ordinary thing to do.

Roxanne hesitated for a heartbeat. Then she took it.

Dancing with Kai was nothing like dancing with Lucien. He barely spoke. He watched her feet, her shoulders, the small shifts of her weight, and adjusted before she needed him to. The silence between them was not awkward. It was comfortable, like a room with the window open.

"You’re unexpectedly good at something that doesn’t involve fighting," she said.

"You make a lot of assumptions about me."

"You give people very little to work with."

He smiled. It came slowly, and it was lopsided, and for a moment she saw a different Kai entirely, one with a spark in his dark eyes and nothing held in reserve. Then the turn of the music carried them apart, and he returned her to the edge of the floor with a small nod, and she realised she was smiling back.

Neither brother had so much as glanced at the other all evening. There was no tension in the room about it, no sharpness. It was only music.

She found Isla and Tessa at the games corner, where Tessa had become locked in a fierce contest to win a ridiculous stuffed otter. She was aiming a ring at a bottle with a murderous expression, and every miss drew a fresh wail of outrage.

"It’s rigged," Tessa announced.

"It’s a ring toss," Isla said.

"It’s rigged by someone who hates me."

Isla was laughing so hard that she had to hold on to Roxanne’s arm, her whole face open and unguarded in a way that Roxanne had not seen for weeks. It was easy to forget, in the middle of the folders and the forms, how bright she could be. Roxanne tucked the sight away carefully.

Tessa won the otter on her eleventh attempt and held it above her head like a trophy. Liam appeared at Roxanne’s elbow just in time to see it.

"A great victory," he said. "Now. Group dance. I need you for the circle."

Last time, she would have refused. She put down her drink. "Fine."

"Fine?"

"Don’t make me regret it."

It was a clumsy, glorious, circling dance, with a dozen people holding hands and a caller shouting steps nobody quite followed. Roxanne trod on Jace’s foot, and Liam’s, and her own. She laughed until she had a stitch in her side.

Afterwards, the friends gathered beneath the courtyard lights, passing around the last of the cider and trading their favourite moments. Tessa’s otter. Liam’s second jacket, which had made a late appearance. The moment the string lights had flickered and the whole hall had cheered. Roxanne sat on the low wall with her shoes in her lap and realised that she had spent nearly the whole night laughing. She had not once wondered what anyone thought of her. She had not rejected anyone or proved anything or chosen a future.

She had simply enjoyed herself.

When the music began to wind down, she slipped out to the edge of the courtyard for a breath of cold air. The stars were out over the roofs. Behind her, the hall glowed like a lantern.

A step sounded in the doorway, and she knew without turning. Lucien stopped there and did not come closer.

"Did you enjoy the evening?" he asked.

"I did."

A pause. "Would you dance with me again?"

She looked at him, surprised by how plain the question was. "Next time, you won’t need to ask so formally."

His expression softened, slowly, from the corners of his eyes. "I will remember that."

He inclined his head and went back inside, leaving her with the night air and a warmth in her chest that she did not try to name.

You liked dancing with him, her wolf said.

Roxanne smiled faintly at the stars. I liked dancing with both of them.

There was a pause. Then, dry and entirely delighted:

That is going to make things interesting.

Roxanne looked back through the doorway at the music and the lights. For once, she did not feel the need to decide what came next.